News / Conservative-liberalism (Laissez-faire liberalism), another utopia for Poland? [99]

Over a quarter of century ago, I used to attend lectures of Janusz Korwin-Mikke (JKM), the person defining the conservative-liberalism (in the sense of economical laissez-faire) in Poland, the founder of Unia Polityki Realnej (UPR). Young Korwin was talking sense, and he was so convincing that I implement his ideas in my personal life till this day. (To make the picture complete, I was also attending lectures of young Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuroń; while I liked what Adam was saying, Jacek's co-operative movement ideas seemed a little going banana to me already at that time).

Now, almost three decades after I listened to Korwin's lectures, Poland was able to build market economy and learned something on own mistakes. Still, number of people are dissatisfied and are trying to find their golden formula for an ideal country. People appearing the most frustrated are the followers of UPR. Let us think whether the conservative-liberal concept (always defined as laissez-faire liberalism) is any way to solve the problems of today's Poland. Yes, some countries had their phase of really liberal economy, mentioning the US in the first place, many years ago. (The concept opposite to laissez-faire liberalism would be etatism or stateism, called 'socialism' by followers of JKM).

The rules of conservative-liberalisms as laid out by JKM in early 1980's were:
1. The role of State should be reduced to absolute minimum;
2. Taxes should be spent only on the Army and be absolutely minimal;
3. No social insurance. No social benefits. No public system of pensions. You have to work, save, invest, you also may invest in private insurance/pension.

4. You better establish a large family, so your children and grandchildren shall take care of you when you're old and unlucky
5. Health system, educational system, all of this is on your own expense, since you know the best how you want to distribute your own money, not the State, right?

6. The economy should be based on laissez-faire or catch-as-catch-can.
7. The police should be private force to which citizen pay to get protection. Locally, people shall carry firearms and organize own security or militia
8. No labour protection: you can be fired at any time if your employer does not like you.
9. (Unsure how the road system should be maintained and developed)
10. Personal responsibility of an individual for own success or failure. No-one gonna help you unless you take care of it yourself. Democracy equals socialism equals EVIL INCARNATED.

To me, the theory looks very nicely as long as it remains on paper.

Let us start with the old-age pensioners or people close to the pension-age. Either these are still supported -- and that means that taxes need to be still collected making the whole idea very ineffective and self-contradictory for many years -- or let the significant group of the people die of hunger.

Next, given all social benefits, the public health, education, police, road etc. systems, there is no evolutionary way to reach such ideal. Because people such as PO or let us just mention one Leszek Balcerowicz, are ridiculed at by UPR followers. Therefore, the only way to start making the conservative-liberal ideals here is to make a coup d'etat. As the effect, all the freedom, laissez-faire and like ideals go to dustbin, right?

Conservative liberals of UPR seem to feel something must be wrong in their thinking, so over last 25 years the doctrine has drastically changed. Now, the UPR followers say: "To make our ideals real, let us enforce -- politically a dictatorship -- and we will let it be economically laissez-faire; that way we will be able to make our points 1-10 real". However, maintaining dictatorship requires the strongest State possible, so the point (1) goes to Hell on the day one. Maintaining the dictatorship also requires money, and these can only be gathered by taxes. Now, the point (2) goes to Hell. The strong regime must also be based on privileges to its officers, so it might be expected so nepotism and corruption will start soon, because people are just people.

Yes, there was a country where conservative liberalism had been introduced. It was Chile and the leader was Gen. Pinochet. As you know, the actions of the Gen. Pinochet regime did not lead to significant growth in Chilean economy (HDI2010 gives 45th world position to Chile in Human Development, while Poland is 41st without conservative liberalism), but Gen. Pinochet before his death in 2006 was charged with 300 criminal offences, including violation of human rights (i.a., political murders by his henchmen), embezzlement, tax evasion, and corruption. Still, gen. Pinochet is the Saint for UPR followers.

Said so much: Is the conservative liberalism in the sense described as above any answer to Polish problems, or is it next utopia, since Communism looked good when it was only on paper?

Discuss.